A Crafty Celebration - Rachel and Paul's Barn Wedding

Gotta love a good love story, and today's real wedding of Rachel and Paul is a great example. They are two sweeties who found love unexpectedly and didn't let go. After a super rose-mantic proposal the pair began planning their dream wedding and that involved a barn (like so many of us these days) they came across Pangdean Barn and it is epic, exposed beams, amazing lush gardens and blank canvas for decor, which was perfect for crafty bride Rachel who was surrounded by DIY projects on the run up to the big day! Foto Memories Photography were the team behind the beautiful photographs that I can't wait to share with you today...

Rachel and Paul met in Holland at a Christian event. They ended up playing together in the music band at the event, sparks flew and a few people even began commenting that they would make a great couple!

After a love at first sight meeting (practically) the proposal was sure to be romantic, and it was...Paul proposed while we were on holiday with my family in the beautiful countryside of the Peak District. We went for a walk together at sunset and at the top of a hill with an incredible view, he gave me a hand-written letter, and then asked me to marry him, it was such a beautiful moment!

It was a team effort from all of Rachel and Paul's friends and family from the start with bride Rachel availing of her best friend, Sarah's talents to do her makeup on the day and her natural look using Bare Minerals is beautiful.

Rachel donned a stunning gold floral design headband to complete her look. It's very Downtown Abbey and right on trend with the Tiara bridal hair pieces we've seen popping up all over the place! If you like the look, check out our Tiara Trend post!

I may have gotten a bit carried away there with Rachel's stunning tiara and skipped hera-mazing bridal gown! How stunning is the embroidered leaf and pearl detail? Wowza, Paul is going to speechless...

With a stunning gown and beautiful accessories to boot, it had to be a chic vintage car for Rachel to arrive in style with, and what better than a Burgundy 1952 Morris Minor Convertible!

Love this wreath sign so much and they're surprisingly easy to make (watch out for our DIY post showing how make your own)

The pair asked their ushers to choose their own suits and then they bought matching ties for them to link them up. They wanted them to be individual and relaxed (which is an important thing to remember brides and grooms!) Matching the ties and buttonholes is a simple but effective way of matching them together and indicating that they are groomsmen.

Beautiful...Just beautiful!

The glory is in the detail and we incorporated lots of different things we love into the theme of our day, from travelling, music, God, vintage and homemade elements. We chose teal, white and gold as our wedding colours and we were thrilled with the result.

Creative bride Rachel made most of the stationery herself, including the wedding invitations with the help of Paul’s sister and the pretty ceremony booklet was designed and printed by Matt Collison.

We also love music, and so we asked some friends of ours to form a band to play the church music during our wedding service. It was so nice to involve friends and family in the whole day - not just helping with the planning.

Woohoo it's official!

How cute is this little village? Love it!

The bridesmaids dresses are from Coast ( a bridesmaid favourite and where I got my bridesmaid dress recently!) Rachel let the girls choose their own shoes and accessories as she wanted them to feel themselves and add their individual touch to their outfits - Great idea and a great way to insure your bridesmaids are comfortable on the day.

If your watching the pennies (which most people are) stick to a one colour bouquet and bulk the bouquets up with baby's breathe (gypsophila) it's such a pretty flower and kind to the budget!

When it came to choosing their venue, Rachel and Paul had another love at first sight moment and that was it... My parents had been to the reception venue before for another wedding at Pangdean Barn so they introduced us to it, and it was love at first sight! The fantastic countryside setting and the marvellous food sealed the deal.

The pop of yellow in these portraits is nice and vibrant, a great mix!

It was a handcrafted day from the start and Rachel and Paul weren't afraid to get involved when it came to the DIY decor...We made a lot of things ourselves, including the invitations, place settings, favours, centre pieces, confetti cones (such a cute idea - paper doilies rolled into cones and filled with dried out petals and tissue paper!) Lots of bunting (made of lace, old sheet music and old maps).

A lot of decorations and themes during the service were personal and designed to display us and what is on our hearts for our adventure together! We love travelling and so we had the idea of making paper bunting using maps from an old atlas to decorate the barn.

I also made the place settings which people could take home with them – I bought a load of old keys from our local ‘brocante’ market in Brussels and, after cleaning them up and spray painting them gold, I attached a name card to each key with string, this was such a nice detail that everyone remembered. I think the effort that went into this, and making sure everyone had one to take away with them made people really feel a part of the day and that we loved them being there. For wedding favours I filled little cellophane bags with gold chocolates and almonds (both white sugar-coated ones and plain ones) which looked great.

We also preferred the way that the people we chose to be a part of our wedding (venues, florist, photographer etc) had a personal feel to them, making us feel like we were valued, feeling like you are merely an involvement in someone's business is not very inspiring! It should be a family affair which our lovely suppliers made happen!

What advice would you give to brides and grooms planning their day? You can often get the same effect, or better, if you make things, but it’s also a good idea to work out whether it would actually be cheaper just to buy some things. Do as much as you can in advance to avoid frantically sticking things together in the run up to the wedding. And dream for a while - even if it's a crazy idea, it is probably possible! A week before the wedding, Paul was outside with a chainsaw chopping up a log from the garden ! I had the idea of using slices of the log as the centre pieces, putting spray-painted wine and beer bottles on top, with candles, flowers and confetti and it worked!

Congratulations Rachel and Paul on your beautiful homemade day! A big Thank You goes to Foto Memories Photography for sharing their work with us at One Fab Day! To see more of Foto Memories Photography's work pop over to www.foto-memories.co.uk.